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114

LETTERS FROM ABROAD

I miss you very much at this moment; for I feel certain that it would overwhelm you with happiness could you be with me now, realising the great outburst of love for me in the continental countries of Europe which I have visited. I have nover asked for it, or striven for it, and I never can believe that I have deserved it. However, if it be more than is due to me, I am in no way responsible for this mistake. For I could have remained perfectly happy in my obscurity to the end of my days, on the banks of the Ganges, with the wild ducks as my only neighbours on the desolate sand islands.

"I have only sown dreams in the air," for the greater part of my life, and I never turned back to see if they bore any harvest. But the harvest now surprises me, almost obstructs my path, and cannot make up my mind to claim it for my own. All the same, it is a great good fortune to be accepted by one’s fellow-beings from across the distance of geography, history and language; and through this fact we realise how truly one is the mind of Man, and what aberrations are the conflicts of hatred and the competitions of self-interest.

We are going to Switzerland to-morrow and our next destination will be Germany. I am to spend my birthday this year in Zurich. I have had my second birth in the West, and there is rejoicing at the event. But by nature all mon are dwija or twice born--first they are born to their home, and then, for their further fulfilment, they have to be born to